Problems with Amazon business model

Amazon “loses” money, Apple makes tons if it. And yet, Wall Street prefers Jeff Bezos’s losses to Tim Cook’s. A look at the two very different cash machines will help dispel the false paradox.

The words above were spoken by an old friend and Amazon veteran, as three French émigrés talked shop at a Palo Alto watering hole. The riposte would fit as the epigraph for The Amazon Money Pump For Dummies, an explanation of Amazon’s ever-ascending stock price while the company keeps “losing money”.

(I don’t like the term Business Model, and Bizmodel even less so. I prefer Money Pump with its lively evocations: attach the hose, adjust the valves, prime the mechanism, and then watch the flow of money from the customer’s pocket to the investor’s purse).

Last quarter, Amazon’s revenue grew by 24% year-on-year, and lost about 1% of its net sales of $17B. This strong but profitless revenue growth follows an established pattern:

Despite the company’s flat-lined profits, Wall Street loves Amazon and keeps sending its shares to new heights. Since its 1997 IP0, AMZN has gone from to 9/share:

How come?

[Professional accountants: Avert your eyes; the following simplification could hurt.

Profit isn't cash, it's merely an increase in the value of your assets. Such increase can be illiquid. Profit is an accountant's opinion. Cash is a fact.]

Amazon uses its e-commerce genius to prime the money pump. The company seduces customers through low prices, prompt delivery, an ever-expanding array of services and products, and exemplary customer attention. What keeps the pump going is the lag between the moment they ding my credit card and the time that they pay Samsung for the Galaxy Note tablet I ordered. Last quarter, Amazon’s daily revenue was about $200M ($17B divided by 90 days). If it waits just 24 hours to pay its suppliers, the company has $200M to play with. If it delays payment for a month, that’s $6B it can use to invest in developing the business. Delay an entire quarter…the numbers become dizzying.

But, you’ll say, there’s nothing profoundly original there. All businesses play this game, retail chains depend on it. Definitely — but what sets Amazon apart is what it does with that flow of free cash. The company is relentless in building the best services and logistics machine on Earth. Just this week, we read that Amazon has hired the US Post Office to deliver Amazon packages (only) on Sundays.